The invention relates to the field of the communication and transmission of data. More particularly, the invention is useful within the framework of communication between a device for configuration, interrogation and/or diagnosis and a so-called “smart” product, such as an assembly of a sensor, detector, actuator or a similar functional product, integrating at least one processing unit.
The invention provides a method for communication between such a device and such a product, as well as a system implementing this method.
The products targeted in this invention are generally permanently installed, after their activation, at particular sites that are reserved for them (industrial sites, public sites, private sites).
In their running operation, these products are connected in a known manner to one or more remote systems(s) ensuring their power supply and evaluating and/or exploiting signals of measurement (logic or analog) that they deliver as output. As a variant, the power supply can also be directly provided by the external power grid or a suitable local power grid. The type of communication and transmission targeted more particularly in this application is a temporary communication established between such a product and a device of the type mentioned above during the particular phases of the life of the product, namely, for example, phases of configuration, calibration, parameterization, interrogation, testing or diagnosis, each of these phases optionally being able to be repeated multiple times, and even at regular intervals.
During these temporary and specific communication phases, the device is generally a master unit, and the product is a slave unit.
Even when a product of the above-mentioned type does not have a user interface (display, keyboard, . . . ), it is nevertheless often useful for it to be able to have a communication method during its manufacture and/or its installation (diagnosis and/or calibration) and/or during its use (configuration, interrogation, . . . ) by a suitable means.
This possibility consequently makes it possible to configure all or part of the functional characteristics of the product or else to be able to interrogate it to recover any type of data that would be stored therein (data acquired during periods of autonomous and running operation relative to the above-mentioned device of the product).
Currently, in this case, a specific means of wire connection (generally implemented by a connector dedicated to the communication) or a wireless communication means (optics, radio, RFID, magnetic coupling, . . . ) is necessary to the product to make it possible for it to communicate with the user via an external device.